Woke up too late to enjoy the breakfast in our hotel so ran next door to have a slice of Margherite pizza, which is known in the states as Cheese, while Beth had a strawberry tart. The pizza slices in Europe are already pre-cooked and the slice you pick goes in the toaster to be heated. I guess that is better than having a slice of pizza sitting in the heat all day long until someone purchases it. Oh, and the pepperoni is very spicy here. But I’m not a fan of spicy food either so I’m am sure there are those who will think otherwise. As far as the tart, Paris’ were better than the ones in London. Both are still very good. We have decided that we need to find a place that makes wonderful tarts and crepes.
After our wonderful and filling breakfast, we head to the Palace de Versailles which is home to the Royal family of one of the King George’s. We take the train down to Versailles and from the rear we hear music. ‘Oh, how nice. They have entertainment on the train. That’s a wonderful idea.’ After the musicians’ performance they came around asking for money. Of course, not knowing any better I begged Beth to give them a little cash. The music put me in a good mood and I was excited about our visit to the palace. We hit the train station that we are to transfer on as the train approaches we see a train full of people where red and yellow outfits. There must be a game, but what for? Football (Soccer)? Once the train stops, the fans begin singing and blowing into their vuvelas (horns) and causing craziness. Every single fan is dedicated to this team. As they walk off the train you can feel their excitement and almost want to be a part of it. Luckily, they let me take a picture which I have posted in Facebook.
We arrive to the palace and it is beautiful and big. This was bigger than the Tower which I totally adored. There are no words to describe the beauty of this palace. So, I will not talk about the visit but rather recommend that you visit our Facebook page and see the photos.
Day 4 -
We visited Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur. Both were great experiences and we were pretty happy that we had an opportunity to check 'em out. At Sacre Coeur we weren't allowed to take pictures indoors. But for those of you that know that Beth likes to be a rebel, it goes without saying that she still took photos. The pictures aren't the best, but they at least give you a feel of the architecture and atmosphere.
As we were heading to the tube station to head home, we get train tickets to the airport. Holy buckets did they cost alot!!! It was 17 Euro for the both of us to travel to the airport and we thought that was a bit ridiculous considering it wasn't that expensive when we arrived. But who knows. So, not only did we purchase tickets for the next day, we needed tickets to get back to the hotel. We purchase our tickets and I slide my ticket in the machine with no problem. But for some reason it rejected Beth's. Are you kidding me? We just purchased the tickets so why wouldn't they work.
By this time we were fed up with Paris and the train stations. In London, there is someone to help you at every single tube station and machines where you can buy tickets. Not this way in Paris. At every 3rd location (that might be giving them too much credit) you were able to speak with someone from the Paris transportion department.
Day 5 -
We know that given the way the trip has gone so far that we better leave 3 hours before departure. Well, it's a good thing we did! Going through the tube stations was not fun at all. Again, we had trouble using our tickets. After trying 3 to 4 times to get through the machine and having the French yell at us, we decide to hop over the ticket machine. What a waste of our 17 Euro. We should've used this method the entire time we were there. Once we arrive to the airport, we got lost in the airport trying to find our terminal to check in. After walking down to the end of the terminal for our carrier, we have to walk all the way back to where we started. So, we still hadn't checked in yet. Normally airports will have the check in near the entrance, but not in France.
Whatever, I'm happy to be home and I'm over it. We have realized that any other vacations that we take will only last a few days. It'll save us money and stress!!!
Monday, 21 June 2010
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Par-is Not for Us Day 2
Again this is Ja'Nae'....
Breakfast in our hotel was pretty good. It only consisted of croissants, some rolls with fruit, cereal, oj, apple juice, and yoghurt. I am not a big of breakfast and even less the items they offered. But the croissants were very good.
We decide that we are going to head out to the Eiffel Tower. But the lady at the front desk suggested that we take a bus to Opera and then venture out. We take her word for it and get on the bus. We get on the bus and insert our 'unused tickets from Beth's friend' and of course, they don't work. When are these damn tickets supposed to work. I am starting to miss the London Transport system at this point, but it's still early in the trip. Taking the bus was NOT worth the trip at all. We arrive at the Opera and try to go in. But it costs money to get in. Beth still thinks that we can get in despite the admission cost. So, we walk in and see there is not an area for those that don't want to pay to at least get a good photo. So we walk right out. We get out our handy dandy map to try and figure out how to get to the Eiffel Tower. We decide that we should go to the Louvre first and then the tower. As we are making our way, we find that we are in the middle of a shopping district. When I say shopping district I mean Prada, Gucci, Levi Strauss (Yes, Levi's are pretty expensive here.) We found a pretty cool monument that had some some crazy artwork. (You can check that out in our FB photos.) Five minutes later, we find this wonderful looking garden. The garden is called Le Jardin des Tuileries. The Louvre is west of it and wait, I think we are beginning to see the tip of the Eiffel. Oh, this is soo cool!!! We head to the Louvre to take a few photos and are amazed at how big it is. From the Louvre, we can see a little bit of the Eiffel, an arch that looks like the Wellington Arch, and the big one - Arc de Triompe. We head to the Arc de Triomphe first. But before we leave Jardin ( must walk through the Jardin in order to get to the Arc) we have a crepe with Nutella, Strawberry, and cream. Mmmmm. This crepe was the best crepe I have ever had and the first. But it was simply amazing. We head to the Arc and take a few photos of the scenery and finally arrive. We walk around and take a few more photos and make our way to the Eiffel. Once we get to the Eiffel, we are hungry again! All this walking just makes us more and more hungry with each step. Since the prices for food are a bit high, we decide to get a hot dog with fries. The hot dog bun was a baguette. The restaurant had a machine with a pole which would poke a hole on the baguette for the hot dog. I was really hoping for a real bun, but this will work.
On to the Eiffel Tower. Beth is soo excited about getting to go to the top and we proceed to get in line. As we stand in line, I look over and see a couple of army looking dudes....with machine guns...and their hands on the trigger. I wasn't sure if this is normal or they are here for a reason. We make our way even closer to the purchase our tickets and on the sign it reads ' Top floor is temporarily closed.' Oh darn, we won't be able to make it to the top. Oh yes, I'm afraid of heights and only doing this because I love Beth. Deep inside, I am soo very happy that we don't get to go to the top. We purchase our tickets and the top is still temporarily closed, but make our way to the elevator. The elevator can fit about 20 people on each level and there are two. It was weird to go up the Eiffel Tower at an angle and fast. We have a video on FB.
Being on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower is not all that bad. Words can't describe the experience, so you need to check out our photos and videos on our FB page.
To end our day at the Eiffel, we catch a rollerblader who is attempting to break a world record. There is a ramp that is built as high as the bottom of arch of the Eiffel Tower. At the end of the ramp is abig balloon looking thing with big styrofoam pieces. Oh my gosh, this guy is going to jump from the top and try to skate down. How neat. But the attempt that we saw, he was unsuccessful. We saw on tv that he succeeded. But that is purely an assumption because the news channel was speaking in French. Did I mention that all of the tv channels in our hotel room were French speaking except for ONE. It was BBC World. At least there was one English speaking channel.
Breakfast in our hotel was pretty good. It only consisted of croissants, some rolls with fruit, cereal, oj, apple juice, and yoghurt. I am not a big of breakfast and even less the items they offered. But the croissants were very good.
We decide that we are going to head out to the Eiffel Tower. But the lady at the front desk suggested that we take a bus to Opera and then venture out. We take her word for it and get on the bus. We get on the bus and insert our 'unused tickets from Beth's friend' and of course, they don't work. When are these damn tickets supposed to work. I am starting to miss the London Transport system at this point, but it's still early in the trip. Taking the bus was NOT worth the trip at all. We arrive at the Opera and try to go in. But it costs money to get in. Beth still thinks that we can get in despite the admission cost. So, we walk in and see there is not an area for those that don't want to pay to at least get a good photo. So we walk right out. We get out our handy dandy map to try and figure out how to get to the Eiffel Tower. We decide that we should go to the Louvre first and then the tower. As we are making our way, we find that we are in the middle of a shopping district. When I say shopping district I mean Prada, Gucci, Levi Strauss (Yes, Levi's are pretty expensive here.) We found a pretty cool monument that had some some crazy artwork. (You can check that out in our FB photos.) Five minutes later, we find this wonderful looking garden. The garden is called Le Jardin des Tuileries. The Louvre is west of it and wait, I think we are beginning to see the tip of the Eiffel. Oh, this is soo cool!!! We head to the Louvre to take a few photos and are amazed at how big it is. From the Louvre, we can see a little bit of the Eiffel, an arch that looks like the Wellington Arch, and the big one - Arc de Triompe. We head to the Arc de Triomphe first. But before we leave Jardin ( must walk through the Jardin in order to get to the Arc) we have a crepe with Nutella, Strawberry, and cream. Mmmmm. This crepe was the best crepe I have ever had and the first. But it was simply amazing. We head to the Arc and take a few photos of the scenery and finally arrive. We walk around and take a few more photos and make our way to the Eiffel. Once we get to the Eiffel, we are hungry again! All this walking just makes us more and more hungry with each step. Since the prices for food are a bit high, we decide to get a hot dog with fries. The hot dog bun was a baguette. The restaurant had a machine with a pole which would poke a hole on the baguette for the hot dog. I was really hoping for a real bun, but this will work.
On to the Eiffel Tower. Beth is soo excited about getting to go to the top and we proceed to get in line. As we stand in line, I look over and see a couple of army looking dudes....with machine guns...and their hands on the trigger. I wasn't sure if this is normal or they are here for a reason. We make our way even closer to the purchase our tickets and on the sign it reads ' Top floor is temporarily closed.' Oh darn, we won't be able to make it to the top. Oh yes, I'm afraid of heights and only doing this because I love Beth. Deep inside, I am soo very happy that we don't get to go to the top. We purchase our tickets and the top is still temporarily closed, but make our way to the elevator. The elevator can fit about 20 people on each level and there are two. It was weird to go up the Eiffel Tower at an angle and fast. We have a video on FB.
Being on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower is not all that bad. Words can't describe the experience, so you need to check out our photos and videos on our FB page.
To end our day at the Eiffel, we catch a rollerblader who is attempting to break a world record. There is a ramp that is built as high as the bottom of arch of the Eiffel Tower. At the end of the ramp is abig balloon looking thing with big styrofoam pieces. Oh my gosh, this guy is going to jump from the top and try to skate down. How neat. But the attempt that we saw, he was unsuccessful. We saw on tv that he succeeded. But that is purely an assumption because the news channel was speaking in French. Did I mention that all of the tv channels in our hotel room were French speaking except for ONE. It was BBC World. At least there was one English speaking channel.
Par-is not for us! Day 1
For all of you that have been waiting for our blog post on our wonderful honeymoon in Paris! It's been a little bit since we have been, but hopefully we remember all the good stuff. This is Ja'Nae's version of Paris.
Day 1: Wake up at 4:00 am to catch our flight that takes off at 6:40am. Our cab picks us up at 10 til 5 and Ja'Nae' gets a little nervous about the ride. 1) It does not have a 'private hire' sticker on the vehicle 2) this is the second time we have ridden in a vehicle over here. Now let me explain the Private Hire. As I have walked around London I have noticed a few signs about taking unlicensed cabs (I'm guessing those that don't have the private hire sticker= unlicensed). The sign shows a girl in a cab screaming, ' Please, no, no. Stop. Stop. Please no.' So that is the reason why I was so cautious and the fact that I have seen too many Lifetime movies. Back to the ride to Heathrow (name of the airport). The driver was going pretty fast! It had to be about 80 miles an hour which Ja'Nae' was not ready for. It woke us up quick. Our driver appears to be of an Indian descent, which is fine, and finally with only 10 minutes left until our destination he decides to turn on the radio. At this moment two odd things happen - 1) There are horses just hanging out in the plains. I'm not sure if this area is considered for farming or what, but I was surprised to see horses near the airport. 2) the music blaring from the radio is Elvis Costello. It's like a scene from 'Office Space' when Michael Bolton blares his rap music. Who would think that Michael Bolton enjoys hardcore rap! I didn't expect Elvis Costello to come out of the radio, but that was the moment when I realized I was being ignorant. Shame on me! I wasn't prejudice when I was at home, but I think it's cause I was the minority. Here, Beth is the minority. And being in London has really opened my eyes and I'm not taking this for granted.
Anyways...... We line up to get our boarding passes. There's a couple in front of us that is taking everything in their house with them. Not only that, but they have two kids that are less than 1 years old that they are each holding. So watching them trying to get the luggage to be checked is quite a sight. I chuckle to myself and make a mental note of how NOT to travel as a parent. as soon as we board the plane I fall asleep immediately. 20 minutes later, I see that we are still at the terminal and hear a gentleman say to the cabin 'Ladies and gentleman, I need your assistance. My bags are at the gate and I need to get them on the plane.' This is the same guy that I just mentioned with the two kids and tons of baggage. He obviously didn't think this plan through. Just as soon as I was about to unbuckle my belt and help, two guys rose up and volunteered. They quickly returned to their seats and I'm thinking we are finally about to take off. Then I hear this guy's kid screaming as if the dad was leaving him forever. The flight attendant notifies the dad that he needs to have the child sitting in his own seat with a special seat belt. They disagree about the necessity of having one for a few minutes. Next thing I see the flight attendant storming off and muttering something under her breath. It didn't bother me cause I went right back to sleep.
After a 2.5 hour flight we arrive in Paris. We are feeling pretty good and are excited about this trip. Having the man's type of mindset, I hope that this is the stereotypical honeymoon if you know what I mean. I get even more excited about this trip. Beth is a pretty confident woman when she thinks she knows what is going on. She had unused tickets from a co-worker that travelled Paris a couple months back. We arrive to the platform area to take the train to our hotel. Since Beth was so confident I follow right behind her and put my ticket in the machine. What?! It doesn't work. Neither of our tickets work. We stand there for a second looking at each other as if one of us has the magical power to make them work. We head back to buy our tickets for the train and this cost us 8 Euros each one way. Okay not a big deal. Luckily the machine had an English translation otherwise we would've been screwed. We arrived to our stop where we needed to transfer to another train to reach our final destination. As we made our through the station we notice there is another ticket machine. So, we take out our tickets that we purchased at the airport and stick them in. Doesn't work! We try it again. Doesn't work! We, again, look at each other for a few minutes. There is no one that works for the Paris Transport Department around. No where for us to purchase additional tickets. A guy jumped over the entire ticket machine to continue his journey. Five minutes later, a husband and wife jump over the ticket machine. I couldn't believe that they did that. Won't CCTV catch them in action? See, in London we have CCTV (Big Brother) watching us all the time. After 10 minutes of hanging out, I noticed at the end of the row, there was a door that was wide open. Beth and I look at each other and walk through the door. Nobody was chasing us to tell us what we did was wrong, so we continue our journey. Finally we arrive at our final stop and look around for our hotel. If we would've been smart we would've checked to see how to get to the hotel from the tube stop. But we didn't and we walked around in a circle. Upon finishing our circle, we realized that we were pretty close to the hotel to begin with.
We get to our hotel and they speak some English. We walk around since we couldn't check in just yet and check out the area. We were pretty hungry so we look at some of the menus. All of the menus are in French, darn it! In the back of my mind, I thought not everything can be in French, right. As we walked around we saw a couple bakeries with tarts, breads, and other patisseries. We decide that it is time to eat and really try to decipher the menus. All of the food was expensive. We finally decided on a restaurant that had some familiar words on the menu such as ribs and frites and steak. Our meal and dessert was awesome!!! Our waitress really tried to help us understand the menu but she wasn't sure of some translations from French to English. Again, my ignorance kicking in as I thought she should know at least some English. But she was VERY nice.
We checked into our hotel room and they show us the lift. Beth and I look at each other and the lift and back at one another. The lift was small. It stated the capacity is 4 people, but I don't think 4 people could fit in there comfortably. We barely fit in there with the two of us and our luggage. We arrived to our room and boy was it small! It was just as big as our hostel. The only difference was that we had our own bathroom and shower and the walls are not angled to make the room even smaller. You can check out photos of our view on our FB page. After getting comfortable, we took a nap. When we woke up, we were both pretty hungry. Again, we make the trek around the area to see what's open. It's only 10:30 and everything was closed. We walked past 3 restaurants and finally ended up at one that had some English on the menu. I had mussels with fries and Beth had a cheese pizza. Now what was amazing was our dessert. I had a strawberry parfait with the best whipped cream I've ever had. Beth had a banana split. What a great way to end of first day.
Day 1: Wake up at 4:00 am to catch our flight that takes off at 6:40am. Our cab picks us up at 10 til 5 and Ja'Nae' gets a little nervous about the ride. 1) It does not have a 'private hire' sticker on the vehicle 2) this is the second time we have ridden in a vehicle over here. Now let me explain the Private Hire. As I have walked around London I have noticed a few signs about taking unlicensed cabs (I'm guessing those that don't have the private hire sticker= unlicensed). The sign shows a girl in a cab screaming, ' Please, no, no. Stop. Stop. Please no.' So that is the reason why I was so cautious and the fact that I have seen too many Lifetime movies. Back to the ride to Heathrow (name of the airport). The driver was going pretty fast! It had to be about 80 miles an hour which Ja'Nae' was not ready for. It woke us up quick. Our driver appears to be of an Indian descent, which is fine, and finally with only 10 minutes left until our destination he decides to turn on the radio. At this moment two odd things happen - 1) There are horses just hanging out in the plains. I'm not sure if this area is considered for farming or what, but I was surprised to see horses near the airport. 2) the music blaring from the radio is Elvis Costello. It's like a scene from 'Office Space' when Michael Bolton blares his rap music. Who would think that Michael Bolton enjoys hardcore rap! I didn't expect Elvis Costello to come out of the radio, but that was the moment when I realized I was being ignorant. Shame on me! I wasn't prejudice when I was at home, but I think it's cause I was the minority. Here, Beth is the minority. And being in London has really opened my eyes and I'm not taking this for granted.
Anyways...... We line up to get our boarding passes. There's a couple in front of us that is taking everything in their house with them. Not only that, but they have two kids that are less than 1 years old that they are each holding. So watching them trying to get the luggage to be checked is quite a sight. I chuckle to myself and make a mental note of how NOT to travel as a parent. as soon as we board the plane I fall asleep immediately. 20 minutes later, I see that we are still at the terminal and hear a gentleman say to the cabin 'Ladies and gentleman, I need your assistance. My bags are at the gate and I need to get them on the plane.' This is the same guy that I just mentioned with the two kids and tons of baggage. He obviously didn't think this plan through. Just as soon as I was about to unbuckle my belt and help, two guys rose up and volunteered. They quickly returned to their seats and I'm thinking we are finally about to take off. Then I hear this guy's kid screaming as if the dad was leaving him forever. The flight attendant notifies the dad that he needs to have the child sitting in his own seat with a special seat belt. They disagree about the necessity of having one for a few minutes. Next thing I see the flight attendant storming off and muttering something under her breath. It didn't bother me cause I went right back to sleep.
After a 2.5 hour flight we arrive in Paris. We are feeling pretty good and are excited about this trip. Having the man's type of mindset, I hope that this is the stereotypical honeymoon if you know what I mean. I get even more excited about this trip. Beth is a pretty confident woman when she thinks she knows what is going on. She had unused tickets from a co-worker that travelled Paris a couple months back. We arrive to the platform area to take the train to our hotel. Since Beth was so confident I follow right behind her and put my ticket in the machine. What?! It doesn't work. Neither of our tickets work. We stand there for a second looking at each other as if one of us has the magical power to make them work. We head back to buy our tickets for the train and this cost us 8 Euros each one way. Okay not a big deal. Luckily the machine had an English translation otherwise we would've been screwed. We arrived to our stop where we needed to transfer to another train to reach our final destination. As we made our through the station we notice there is another ticket machine. So, we take out our tickets that we purchased at the airport and stick them in. Doesn't work! We try it again. Doesn't work! We, again, look at each other for a few minutes. There is no one that works for the Paris Transport Department around. No where for us to purchase additional tickets. A guy jumped over the entire ticket machine to continue his journey. Five minutes later, a husband and wife jump over the ticket machine. I couldn't believe that they did that. Won't CCTV catch them in action? See, in London we have CCTV (Big Brother) watching us all the time. After 10 minutes of hanging out, I noticed at the end of the row, there was a door that was wide open. Beth and I look at each other and walk through the door. Nobody was chasing us to tell us what we did was wrong, so we continue our journey. Finally we arrive at our final stop and look around for our hotel. If we would've been smart we would've checked to see how to get to the hotel from the tube stop. But we didn't and we walked around in a circle. Upon finishing our circle, we realized that we were pretty close to the hotel to begin with.
We get to our hotel and they speak some English. We walk around since we couldn't check in just yet and check out the area. We were pretty hungry so we look at some of the menus. All of the menus are in French, darn it! In the back of my mind, I thought not everything can be in French, right. As we walked around we saw a couple bakeries with tarts, breads, and other patisseries. We decide that it is time to eat and really try to decipher the menus. All of the food was expensive. We finally decided on a restaurant that had some familiar words on the menu such as ribs and frites and steak. Our meal and dessert was awesome!!! Our waitress really tried to help us understand the menu but she wasn't sure of some translations from French to English. Again, my ignorance kicking in as I thought she should know at least some English. But she was VERY nice.
We checked into our hotel room and they show us the lift. Beth and I look at each other and the lift and back at one another. The lift was small. It stated the capacity is 4 people, but I don't think 4 people could fit in there comfortably. We barely fit in there with the two of us and our luggage. We arrived to our room and boy was it small! It was just as big as our hostel. The only difference was that we had our own bathroom and shower and the walls are not angled to make the room even smaller. You can check out photos of our view on our FB page. After getting comfortable, we took a nap. When we woke up, we were both pretty hungry. Again, we make the trek around the area to see what's open. It's only 10:30 and everything was closed. We walked past 3 restaurants and finally ended up at one that had some English on the menu. I had mussels with fries and Beth had a cheese pizza. Now what was amazing was our dessert. I had a strawberry parfait with the best whipped cream I've ever had. Beth had a banana split. What a great way to end of first day.
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